


Bucky Holiday

by lokis_misunderstood_tears



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Fluff to Angst, Headcanon, M/M, Post CATWS, Singing, breif descriptions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 17:29:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2436968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokis_misunderstood_tears/pseuds/lokis_misunderstood_tears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky has a voice that could match Billie Holiday.  Steve remembers that voice well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bucky Holiday

Bucky Holiday  
It happened when Steve was walking aimlessly through the nightlife section of Glasgow chasing a lead of Bucky being in the United Kingdom. Steve had remembered Bucky telling Steve about hearing from a Scottish immigrant at the docks how great the art collections were there. He wasn’t one for art and he wanted to see Steve smile when he was so broken over being rejected from the army again. He had promised Steve they would go there one day. It happened when he was tired and alone, Sam had suddenly been engrossed in futbol and stayed at the hotel’s bar watching the game aggressively shouting when anything and everything happened. It happened when he was not searching. Well, that’s not true Steve was always searching even if it was consciously or not. So, when his ears picked up a melody that’s all too nostalgic to him he stopped his leisure strides. He began to walk with a purpose towards whatever was making the perfectly done notes. He ducked into the undescriptive club unnoticed, the occupants were too focused on the stage to pay any attention to the newcomer. The singer is blocked by the crowded tables and the stage being a level lower than the audience so only the seated in the front can fully see.  
The voice sings the well-known words as beautifully as Billie Holiday did, if not deeper and with a more manly rumble. It’s beautiful and Steve hadn’t found anyone who could sing Lover, Come Back to Me like the records Steve and Bucky listened religiously to way back when. Except Bucky. He could copy Bessie Smith to Ella Fitzgerald to Frank Sinatra as easily as the late original singers could.  
Bucky would hum under his breath as he made breakfast for Steve before he had to go to work on the docks. He would sing like a lullaby when he nursed Steve’s endless illnesses. He whispered the songs while he reloaded his guns and when he set up his sniper position. It was natural and warm and even when they were worlds away it always made Steve feel like he was back home in Brooklyn.  
The singer hits a certain high note that you wouldn’t expect from the previously low voice. It brings back a crystal clear memory of Bucky when he sang confidently and loud without any restrictions because they knew the cranky Mrs. Hudson was out shopping. It was exactly the note that Bucky would hit.  
Exactly.  
Steve’s eyes widen and a gasp escaped his lips, how had he not put it together the moment he heard? That was Bucky’s voice, Steve was sure of it. He had thousands of memories to compare it to. When the song ended the singer stepped up onto the platform where the piano was placed and whispered something into the player’s ear. She smiled and nodded. The singer turned back around still on the platform and his front was on display from the spotlight. Steve shook his head at the sight, torn between laughing and wanting to run up on stage.  
Bucky was cleaned up looking like he did before for the most part. The stubble was shaved down and his hair still long but the front pieces were pulled back to frame his face. He was dressed in casual jeans and a t shirt with a classy suit jacket and a glove on his left hand. The gloved hand wrapped around a vintage microphone. His look matched the glam of the club, but how it could also be passed off as a cheap bar from the outside. Steve spotted a hint of eyeliner to illuminate the eyes that were supposed to be brighter and to draw attention away from the dark bags below them.  
A new tune started up and the rest of the band followed the piano. Bucky leaned on the piano and faked a suave, flirty smile that had once been an expression almost always glued to his face. Now, it didn’t reach his eyes and it was just for show. They weren’t paying for a broken soldier, they wanted an anonymous man attached to a voice that was anything but. He took a breath to calm himself like he always did before starting.  
“I'll be seeing you  
In all the old familiar places  
That this heart of mine embraces  
All day and through”  
Steve leaned in as if it would instantly take away the distance between them. He knew these words by heart, had listened to the song a hundred times, but they sounded new after so long of not hearing them. Bucky closed his eyes and smiled the smallest bit. This one was real.  
“In that small cafe  
The park across the way  
The children's carousel  
The chestnut trees, the wishing well”  
He knew these places. Bucky and he had gone there. They had traced the places Billie had sung about hoping to find the secret she had with the person she shared the events that made the locations special with. They found something, but not Billie’s moments. They found their own.  
Bucky moved down from the platform and across the lower stage out of Steve’s view. Steve had to see him. Steve couldn’t let him disappear. Not again. He slipped through the tables with soft feet not to disturb the hypnotized patrons. He was able to find a spot in the shadows next to the kitchen. He doubted that Bucky would be able to see him from his spot, but it gave him the full view of his lost friend.  
“I'll be seeing you  
In every lovely summer's day  
In everything that's light and gay  
I'll always think of you that way”  
Bucky’s eyes scanned the audience on the note that required a challenging harmony with the trumpet. He stopped just short of where Steve stood and squared his shoulders to get the right volume.  
“I'll find you in the morning sun  
And when the night is new  
I'll be looking at the moon  
But I'll be seeing you  
I'll be seeing you  
In every lovely summer's day  
In everything that's light and gay  
I'll always think of you that way”  
Steve practically melted from the fear of being caught as Bucky scanned again, he didn’t want Bucky to stop singing he wanted to remember this so he had an image of this Bucky that could cancel out the horrors of D.C. Bucky never reached Steve though and closed his eyes in concentration for the last lines.  
“I'll find you in the morning sun  
And when the night is new  
I'll be looking at the moon  
But I'll be-  
Finally, Bucky opened his eyes in the moment when Steve could get a seat in the semi light. He opened them to find Steve in the hundred faces. He paused momentarily in shock. Making his lips turn into an O shape that wasn’t right for the song. The piano player repeated the keys for Bucky to pick up and sing again. Bucky had always had a hard time not finishing a song.  
He bore into Steve’s eyes and with an intensity and disbelief finished.  
Seeing you”  
The crowd cheered and clapped and demanded more not noticing the brief mistake Bucky had made. Bucky wasn’t listening to the requests for an encore he was trained on Steve and Steve alone until he forced himself to turn away. He rushed over to the piano to plead with her as the other band members picked up the cue to give them time and started a newer song Steve didn’t know. Bucky looked like he was begging, but the piano player was stubborn and held up three fingers. Bucky sighed and Steve was worried he would storm out. Or do worse. He simply nodded and stayed over by her during the next three songs. If they were slightly rushed no one seemed to care. Bucky glanced at Steve for a moment a few times almost like he was checking to confirm that Steve was still there or there at all.  
Steve fought with denial and an optimism he hadn’t felt in too long. If it was real, and Steve hoped with all the hope he had left it was, then he had found him. He had found Bucky.  
Bucky looked a kind of nervous Steve didn’t see on him often during the standing ovation. He immediately strode offstage once a new act came on. A singer that knew she couldn’t match the previous talent. Steve ran out and around to the back door before Bucky could hurriedly emerge. Steve caught Bucky by the arm before he could slip away. Bucky’s eyes were wild and the eyeliner had smudged from something that looked suspiciously like he had been crying. Bucky shook his head as if Steve had asked a question. He had. A silent question to make sure it wasn’t nightmare.  
“Bucky.” Steve choked out.  
Bucky shook his head again moving as if he was going to try and leave, but something stopped him. He could if he wanted to, Steve had let his arm go an unspoken request for permission.  
“Bucky.” Steve sobbed and pulled a motionless Bucky into a crushing hug. Bucky complied uncertainly, brought his right arm up and around all the same. His left arm stayed by his side.  
“Steve.” Bucky replied into the crook of Steve’s neck. “Steve, I’m sorry.”  
Steve hugged him closer and corrected him, “It wasn’t your fault. Bucky, it wasn’t your fault. It was mine. It was them. It just wasn’t your fault. You need to know that.” He used a few lines Sam had used when Steve got in a dark mood. Sam had been able to convince him, he prayed Steve could convince Bucky.  
Bucky was crying now and Steve followed suit useless to the waves of different emotions every second.  
“I remember everything.” Bucky told him and his voice was hoarse from singing, crying, and he smelled of more alcohol than singing in a bar would make him. “You made me remember.”  
Steve looked down at his well combed hair and shaking posture and wished he could make him forget, even if he had been worried that Bucky would do just that.  
“I’m with you, Buck. I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.” Steve promised him sincerely.  
Steve felt himself move without being in control and he felt his lips meet the impossibly softness of Bucky’s. They hadn’t kissed since Bucky told him about being enlisted. Bucky was too shaken up and put off by Peggy to kiss him after Steve found him. They almost kissed before the train, but there were too many people and Steve couldn’t when he had already betrayed Peggy. That was one of Steve’s greatest regrets. He would do anything to be able to go back and kiss Bucky before he fell. It was the feeling that Steve had when he heard Bucky sing again. It was a fierceness that brought back everything pleasant.  
Then there was a fire inside him and it wasn’t from kissing Bucky. He looked down at a red spreading over his white shirt. He moved away from Bucky and the knife that slid out of his stomach. He looked into the wild eyes of Bucky. The eyes of not the Bucky he knew. Not right now.  
“I’m sorry, Steve.” Bucky repeated earnestly and he pocketed the knife as Steve dropped to his knees holding onto the wound.  
“Bucky.” Steve called after the disappearing form. He couldn’t bring himself to chase after him, the wound was too deep and his head was filling with a blinding confusion that paralyzed him forcing him to watch as Bucky began to run.  
“Bucky.”  
“Bucky!”  
He whispered as his eyes closed, “Bucky.”

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a prompt for Stucky and fluff. I dare you to try and find the fluff. I like to listen to copious amounts of jazz when writing hence the idea for Bucky being a jazz singer. Also, picture it. Picture it and enjoy the tears.  
> Come cry with me on tumblr at bistevenrogers.tumblr.com


End file.
